My Grading System

I have to admit, aesthetics is an area of philosophy I have barely explored. This is probably because Jerome Balmuth taught it most semesters and I was loathe to take a course with him again. That being said I'll try my best to highlight some interesting philosophical issues.


A few years ago I came up with my own way to evaluate music. To me there are three main categories: musicianship, lyrics, and melody/catchiness.

Musicianship:

Musicianship is just that. If a song makes me step back and say "Wow, that was a sick guitar solo" or "This girl's range is amazing" then the song gets a +1 for musicianship. Musicians focus on this category much to their own detriment. This category is filled pretty much everything by Stevie Ray Vaughan that isn't a cover of Hendrix. For example, "Eruption" by Eddie Van Halen has some of the sickest guitar work this side of Hendrix but is an absolutely terrible, and I mean terrible, song. Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan and most hair metal is an example of musical greatness without a lick of lyrical greatness or catchiness.

Is it any surprise that an artist can be great while being a mediocre musician? Think about it, how many modern painters are as technically good as Rembrandt? How many even care about that? Why should it be any different with music? This is one of the reasons I absolutely hate American Idol. Who cares if you can sing a song perfectly? Do they really think they are doing justice to a song by Nina Simone when they sing it technically perfect but without any feeling? What makes it so much worse is that they sing songs that shouldn't be sung perfectly. The songs aren't about the musicianship of the singer. The songs are about the feeling the songs are supposed to convey.

Lyrics:

In this category are songs that make you take notice to a clever turn of phrase or lyrics that make you relate to the song. This is probably the most subjective of the categories. I have friends who actually think that the Red Hot Chili Peppers write good lyrics. Sample RHCP lyric: "Hey oh, listen what I say oh". That being said, I don't think lyrics are a deal breaker. I threw the lyrics category in because it helps differentiate good hip-hop and rap songs from bad hip-hop and rap songs. In these genres lyrics are incredibly important obviously.

Some artists that are excellent lyricists but aren't great at anything else: Conor Oberst, Eliot Smith, and Morrissey (debatable on multiple fronts).


Melody/Catchiness

Now this category is the most vague of all. I think it is the category most people would use to explain why they like a song ("It's so catchy! I can't get it out of my head!"). When I was thinking of this category I was trying to find a way to include some pop songs that I think have artistic merit but don't have great musicianship or lyrics. This is what immediately grabs you when you hear a song. A great song has a melody that is simple and yet complex enough to hold your attention. A great melody can be seperated from an OK melody simply through repeated listening. If upon repeated listening you start to hate the song then the melody is not interesting enough. This is what happens with routine pop songs.

So these are the categories I have employed over the last few years. Over time I have come to realize that I more frequently use these categories to justify my interest in a song. That is, I use the songs to articulate why I think other people should like this song. This realization has changed the way I think about music and artistic taste. But more on that later...